Past Work

What would it look like if the digital world existed in a physical realm?

My work takes images from the digital world and recreates them through the physical processes of printmaking, installation and painting. My work is an act of physicality in order to re-inhabit this digital cyberspace in which we find ourselves. These acts describe our new merging reality, a world where online life is just real as that offline.

'As Real as a JPEG' reacts to this chaotic digital world with the slow processes of oil painting and printmaking. Such methodical and time-consuming methods contrast the digital and the instantaneous. Printmaking as a medium itself is always in flux, from plates to paper, to pixels. the digital means of sharing.

I am intrigued by the fact that our networked life allows us to hide from each other, even as we are tethered to each other. The technology has become like a phantom limb. In my most recent work, I have been painting from a series of digitally edited photos collected as part of my primary research into communication during lockdown.

Many artists have been useful references for my research. In the work of Yuting Cai there is a troubling oscillation between intimacy and distance that characterizes our new technological age and the screens to which we are glued. The use of digital editing software in the work of Kei Imazu has been an inspiration in how I disrupt my own photography. Sarah Sze’s use of light in her approach to installation has also been significant for my work.

The pandemic has highlighted our dependence on technology, as well as our many frustrations with it. The internet is a symbol of hope and connection, but also a reminder of distance and the anxious time we live in.

In many ways, this project was a response to these "strange times" we live in.

My work explores the fragile interplay between memory, time, and identity, using the medium of etchings and prints to delve into the fluid nature of recollection. Grounded in the personal, my recent series draws inspiration from my Granny's childhood photographs, taken beside the River Shannon in Ireland. These images—snapshots of an idyllic past—are both tethered to a sense of place and imbued with the inexorable passage of time.

Through processes like chromatography and water distortion, I manipulate the ink in ways that parallel the dreamlike quality of childhood memories. The water both distorts and dissolves, mirroring the way our minds reshape, blur, and, at times, lose the details of the past. The River Shannon, which shaped the lives of those in these photographs, becomes a metaphor for this constant ebb and flow.

This body of work also acknowledges a more somber connection to memory. Alzheimer's disease runs in my family; two of my Granny's sisters—present in the referenced photographs—suffered from severe Alzheimer's in later life. These works celebrate the vivid, almost magical distortions of memory associated with youth while confronting the inevitable effacement of memory that often accompanies age.

By engaging with these themes, I hope to evoke both the beauty and poignancy of the transient nature of memory, using water and ink as both medium and metaphor.

Niamh Hegarty’s work is a collaborative exploration of beauty and resilience in contemporary life, rooted in research conducted through interviews. By engaging participants in conversations about their reasons for living and moments of quiet beauty, she collects narratives that inform her practice. These interviews, paired with photographic documentation, inspire figurative paintings that visually interpret the participants’ stories. The paintings are then presented alongside interview transcripts and poetic reflections in a zine format, creating a layered narrative. This approach offers a collective suggestion for navigating chaotic times, transforming personal accounts into shared hope and guidance in an increasingly fragmented world.